Thursday, September 14, 2017

In March 2017, co-chairing the Open Government Track in United Nations's majestic ICEGOV 2017 conference in Delhi, proved to be the core of an inspiring week.

The conference was attended by more than 1,500 participants, with the two-thirds being Indian - surely, the widest local participation in the 10 years of ICEGOV. Which was coupled by a mostly impressive organisation and coverage.

The conference was attended by the Indian Minister of Telecommunications, the Minister of Education and several State Ministers (these belong to the numerous local governments, typically implementing the country and region strategy with the collaboration of a few to a hundred million people), to couple with UN officials, policy experts and technology gurus that passed from the podiums. More than 100 papers were presented in the three days of the conference, while numerous projects and organisations from the region had a booth at the exhibition. In every lunch or coffee break you could freely eat, have coffee or talk under the huge tent, with one or more of 1,000 people.

Our track on Open goverment, co-chaired with Rony Medaglia from Copenhagen Business School, delivered a few well-selected contributions on open data, service co-design and big-data from policy making. You may see all the track via the YouTube video

During the opening ceremony of ICEGOV 2017, one could not miss the 100 seats reserved for the "Digital Champions of India". Initially empty, they were almost packed when digital champions arrived in groups, after travelling one to one thousand miles, to come from home.

I was impressed, for the a first time
... not by the number but by the average age: less than 20 years old, or at least that was my feeling.

With Digital India Champions

I kept going with the conference, the presentations, the informal discussions with friends and colleagues from several countries. Then, at lunch time, I was approached by a group of young students, to plan for a short interview with the "Digital India Channel", a project broadcasting all Digital India activities through internet, TV and other media, thus having a studio within the conference.

I was impressed for a second time
... enough to think "now I have a reason to learn more about Digital India"

So, I immediately came in contact with the organisers who prompted me to the proper guy: the KMPG consultant, leading a team that was running some parts of Digital India dissemination. My demand was simple, I thought, to find 2-3 young digital champions to have a short interview with, so I could write the lines you read now. In a couple of hours, we had a place, three rande-vous set and almost 10 other people fidgeting around, gathering even more of their colleagues from time to time.

-- The first champion: The literature student

The first was a 21-years young man, studying Sanskrit Literature and Linguistics, who knew how to handle computers, mobiles, internet browsers and the sort. So, he applied to the Digital India - Village Level Entrepreneurship (VLE) programme, under the Education scheme. After becoming an educator, he managed to educate not less than 600 people in 9 months, in the use of internet technologies, making them capable to handle typical G2C and B2C transactions, and get certified at country - wide exams. His overall income for nine months (8/2016 - 3/2017) exceeded 300,000 Indian Rupees (when a basic salary in his region is not more than 20,000 per month).

-- The second champion: the team of service providers

This case was larger and more complex: a team of four women, skilled on ICT tasks and systems, created an SME, to provide educational services, in a 50% partnership with the state. The state giving also 50% of the capital and immediate revenue through the training of individuals and VSE's - SME's in the region. The training programme ended successfully and now the company provides support services to enterprises related to the use, further exploitation or customisation of government services. The company is profitable, still retaining the profits, with the consent if its stakeholders- both the state and the four founders.

With Digital Champions at the press center

The realisation of the immense power of education in this digital programme became more clear at the closing of the conference, where we concluded with the presence of Minister of Education.

- "Why is the Minister of Education here, in Digital India", he asked.

- "Only to declare that we are ready to contribute", he said and paused.

- "With an "army" of 100 million students.", he added, congratulating the numerous students in the room.

And, I was impressed for a third time.

I went on thinking upon the Greek National Digital Policy, the European Commission funded programmes and relevant topics of the "west" ...

Saturday, August 19, 2017

During my US trip, in late April 2017 I had the chance to visit Stevens Institute of Technology, in New York. My pleasure was double: both because I could deliver a lecture on Entrepreneurship at the Software Engineering class of a leading technical university, and because I was invited by an alumni of University of the Aegean, Dimitris Damopoulos - now Assistant Professor at Stevens.

With Dimitris at the (tight) Stevens entrance

Stevens Institute of Technology is a private university situated in Hoboken, New Jersey, overlooking the Manhattan skyline. Founded in 1870 by Stevens family (America's First Family of Inventors, who patented steam ferries and railroad track), the university has put technological innovation as the hallmark of its education and research programs ever since. Today, within the university’s three schools and one college, 6,600 undergraduate and graduate students collaborate with faculty members in an interdisciplinary, student-centric, entrepreneurial environment. Among others in its alumni we also find Henry Gantt, the creator of the Gantt Chart, used as a project management tool for giga-projects like the Hoover Dam.

My presentation at the Software Engineering class touched upon issues like supply-chain-driven technology entrepreneurship, open-data based application development and of course the Aegean Startups programme, and seemed to be greatly enjoyed by the multinational audience. Something the amazed me from my audience was that almost 40% of them seemed to have read "Goedel - Escher - Bach", a book by D. Hofstadter on creativity patterns and more. The fastest even got University of the Aegean t-shirts as a small reward. I hope we will setup more collaborative lessons and projects between Aegean and Stevens at the coming months.

With a happy class, after the lecture at Stevens

Hoboken is just 20 minutes by bus or ferry from Manhattan, but looks like another world. Going back to NY centre, leaving the peaceful parks and piers overlooking the opposite coast of Manhattan for Times Square was like going from a village to a space station. Still, one can go back ...

Friday, August 18, 2017

During April - May 2018 I had the pleasure to spend some days at the Center for Technology in Government (CTG), of the State University New York at Albany, US - one of the leading research centres for electronic government worldwide.

Importantly also, I enjoyed the company and hospitality of all CTG staff. A big hug to Teresa, Ramon, Caroline, Brian, Sylvia and all for your warmth and laughter ... !

With CTG staff at Albany

Where tea cups join ...

Taking part in Student projects screening, with the mayors of Albany and (spell that !) Schenectady

Albany, the capital of New York State, is one of the oldest British settlements in the area. A rather isolated place, 3 hours far from the New York hassle and north of a very interesting landscape, around the Hudson river. With Albany as the centre of my trips, I managed to visit New York, West Point Academy, IBM Watson Labs, and of course drive down the legendary Taconic State Parkway.

The Taconic State Parkway: connecting upstate NY with New York city, via the woods

Driving down the Taconic State Parkway

Albany itself is not very attracting to the usual tourist, apart from its spectacular city centre: combing the old State Capitol with new skyscrapers (used mainly by NY state administration) provide an interesting skyline.

Albany skyline at night - spectacular uh ?

The real gem of my sightseeing experiments however was laying down at Hudson river dock: Moored on the Hudson River in Albany, the USS SLATER is the only afloat WW II destroyer, that has undergone an extensive restoration returning the ship to her former glory. So far so good: another USS on display, with a possibility to jump on board. But, discussing with Joe, one of the volunteers that take care of the ship, an intriguing story revealed:

USS Slater was one of the four destroyers of the Cannon class (together with USS's Eldridge, Ebert and Garfield Thomas) that were transferred to the Greek Navy in 1951, renamed to Aetos (Slater), Leon, Ierax and Panthir, respectively.

Under the Greek Navy flag, Aetos - Slater is the ship that was the scenery for the popular Greek movie "Alice in the Navy", starring Aliki Vougiouklaki - the Greek movie star of the '60's.

USS Slater (or Aetos), at early 60's, with Aliki Vougiouklaki on board

With Joe, outside USS Slate (Aetos)

The other destroyer of the same class (Leon or USS Eldridge) has been the scenery for the so-called Philadelphia Experiment, a rather controversial story of an alleged US Navy experiment on tele-portation.

Monday, April 3, 2017

In April 2017 we launched the Greek Digital Governance Research Centre, a multi-discipline collaborative research centre of excellence in Electronic Governance, hosted at the University of the Aegean.

The launching event was attended by representatives of the academia, the public sector and private enterprises, discussing on the new developments and technological trends in the domain of e-government.

The day opened by a keynote speech from Marijn Janssen, professor at the Technical University Delft, the Netherlands, highlighting the current trends in public administration modernisation from all over the world. You may see the main issues touched by Marijn in the short interview below:

Short statements about the Greek Digital Research Centre were made by esteemed representatives of the public and private sector (in Greek):

Leonidas Koveos, Ernst & Young

Harris Tsavdaris, Microsoft

Apostolos Schizas, Ministry of Finance

Dimitris Koryzis, Hellenic Parliament

Currently, the Digital Governance Research Centre has more than 150 members from Greek and international organisations, enterprises and universities, dedicated to electronic government research and practice. If you are interested in becoming a member please visit http://www.dgrc.gr

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

Delft University of Technology launches Massive Open
Online Course (MOOC) about Open Government

While governments all over the world aim to become more
open and transparent, opening the government is a complex and challenging
problem. How can governments become more open and transparent, while
simultaneously dealing with various challenges, such as data sensitivity? How
can open government data be made available to improve public policy making?
Which technologies are available to make governments more open and to use open
government data?

This Open Government MOOC is aimed at university
students, professionals, government officials, policy advisors and
researchers, but is open to anyone
interested in Open Government. It will help participants grasp the key
principles of open government, and answers questions like: 'What are the best
practices for opening governments? And how to give citizens access to
governmental data to answer their questions?' Most importantly, participants
will apply the topics of the course to concrete cases.

What participants will learn:

· Basic
concepts related to Open Government and Open Government Data

· How to
analyze and discuss benefits, barriers and potential negative effects of a
particular open government case

· How to
analyze public values and best practices related to open government

· How to
apply the open government principles in various situations

· To
understand potential negative and positive effects Open Government might bring

This MOOC includes lectures by:

· Prof.
Marijn Janssen - Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, Head of ICT
section and professor in ICT and governance

· Dr. Anneke
Zuiderwijk - Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, Researcher in
Open Data

· Dr.
Bastiaan van Loenen - Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands,
Associate Professor in geo-information and land development

Friday, November 25, 2016

In November 2016 I had the opportunity to visit the egovlab, at the Department of Computer Science in Stockholm University. I visited the lab on the day of the celebration for the 50 years of the computer science department, so I had the chance to see a lot of friends, professors at the department.

With Vassilis Koulolias, director of eGovlab

eGovlab and our Digital Governance Research Centre have several research areas in common, that will materialise in forthcoming jointly planned projects in the areas of co-creation, open government and advanced services for citizens and businesses.

Also, I had the chance to see the way that the new DSV building is operating, covering the needs for a lot of different types of inhabitants: professors, students, researchers, startups, collaborating companies, citizens. high school pupils, and more - all can find their place within this multi-functional, dynamically re-organised facility. And it looks great too !

Views from the DSV building: not a typical University !

On the same day, I also spent some time at the Swedish Research Centre SICS and be guided in some innovative embedded systems software projects by Colleague Efi.

With Efi Papatheocharous, outside SICS offices

And of course, not to forget my ex-students Antonis and Meletis, that now after their BSc in Samos and an MSc in DSV, already work in the Swedish ICT sector.

Friday, July 8, 2016

The 7th Samos Summit on ICT-enabled Governance was held in Karlovassi, Samos on 3 to 8 July 2016. The topic of the Summit was "Smart Cities, Smart Governance, Smart Entrepreneurship" and was attended by participants from more than 10 countries.

In conjunction with the Samos Summit, the 4th International Summer School on Open and Collaborative Governance was organised, attended by students and researchers from Greece and the world.

More than 30 presentations and workshops touched upon issues of smart governance and entrepreneurship at local and national level.

In parallel with the Samos Summit, the artistic event Samos Music and Arts Days was organised. Samos Music and Arts Days took part between the 3rd and 8th July 2016 in Karlovassi, parallel to the summer schools of University of the Aegean, which attract many new students and professors from Greece and abroad. Thus, members of the academia and science have also the opportunity to attend and actively participate in the cultural activities of the festival.

This year’s program of Samos Music and Arts Days combined from one side the art of selected professional artists and from the other side the possibility of participation of amateur artists and of the local people of Samos, whether adults or children. The program included:

Thursday, February 4, 2016

In early January 2016 I had the chance to join the annual meeting of the Global Venture Lab at University California Berkeley. The Global Venture Lab (GVL) is a network and collaborations of international institutions founded in 2009. GVL seeks to foster entrepreneurship within the University and to bring Berkeley’s research capability to industry collaborations. To these ends, the GVL members share best practices in entrepreneurship & innovation, host transnational multi-disciplinary research, contribute to the globally-connected ecosystem of the Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology at UC Berkeley.

The "Ark of the World" is a Non-Profit Organization for the Special Care and Protection of Mothers and Children which operates on the care of children who were living under conditions of negligence and abandonment, without medical attendance, without a future; most of them coming from single parent families and many of them without parents. The "Ark of the World" was founded in 1998 by the twenty-six-year (then) old priest, Father Antonios Papanikolaou, having as his weapons his love for children and his wish to create a nest of affection and care for the "other children" of Athens.

The IS-Lab team at Kivotos

The joy of the kids, the interest and appreciation of the Kivotos's staff, the love of all of them were the best possible reward for us all.

We look forward to being again with the kids, at the first possibility !

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

On November 24, 2015 I had the chance to be an invited speaker at the international Zagreb Forum, that was held with its main subject being Smart Cities.

The Zagreb Forum is a yearly gathering of government officials, practitioners, industrial representatives and researchers around a governance topic. This year, the overarching issue was "Co-Creation of Creative City by Citizens".

I had the pleasure to listen to several interesting presentations from Smart (or to-be-smart) Cities from all over Europe. One should note the presentations from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Ljubljana and Vienna, among many others.

I presented the SMART-MED approach, a method for developing smart city / smart islands solutions through enabling entrepreneurship in local societies. The SMART-MED approach is already a proposal by a consortium comprising islands and municipalities from Greece, Cyprus, Slovenia, Croatia and Italy.

More information on the Zagreb 2015 Forum can be found at: http://zagrebforum.eu/en/

Saturday, January 23, 2016

Since September 2015, the 1st Lyceum of Papagou invited me for a talk on entrepreneurship, towards 2nd and 3rd grade students (that is 17 and 18 years of age). It was only on November 2015 that I managed to spend some time with them.

Grouped in two teams, with more than 100 persons in each, it was an audience rather difficult to motivate. We needed more than 20 minutes of ice-braking dicsussion and teasing to get in shape for the main menu: an one-hour talk on the "Facts and Myths of Entrepreneurship", my newest composition of knowledge, experience and issues for discussion.

What I learned or remembered in these 2 X 2 = 4 hours ?

- High school students are always ready to give credit or interest to non-standard presenters

- How anxious last-graders are with their university exams.

- How enjoyable it is to be next to young(er than university) students. At least, for four hours every now ant then ..

Monday, January 18, 2016

In early October 2015 we organised the final day of Aegean Startups entrepreneurship competition. It was the culmination of more than 8 months of selecting and mentoring teams of students and young to-be entrepreneurs.

More than 60 ideas were submitted in the first round, in the 4 categories of the competition: tourism and culture, agriculture and traditional food products, transportation and commerce, ICT and governance. Approximately half of them made it in the second round, having then to submit more elaborate business plans with the help of external mentors. Each proposal was evaluated by 3 business mentors and 10 of them were given prizes and awards at the finals.

The day was combined with visits and workshops to OrangeGrove, Google Greece and Intrasoft International on the day before, giving the opportunity to team members to present and discuss their ideas with other startup-ers and business angels.

At the Orange Grove, with teams of students

At Google Greece premises in Athens

The final "ceremony" was attended by more than 100 people from business and academia, acting as a lively audience to student teams. Awards ranged from money prizes, computers and tablets, to positions in late-stage incubators like Microsoft Innovation Centre, Orange Grove, TheAthensIncubator, etc.

The winner teams with their awards

A nice top-up for the finals organisation was the appearance in Greek Public Television morning zone in the day after, discussing live with students on their ideas and their plans for the future.

Aegean Startups in ERT television

A nice wrap-up video of the whole experience of the two days can be seen below (video recording and editing by Orestis Zacharogiannis)

In September and October 2015 I had the chance to meet with local administration officials, young entrepreneurs and students, during one-day specialised training sessions on "Smart Cities and Local Development with the participation of Administration, Industry and Academia", held in Samos and Rhodes.

These training workshops attracted audience from local communities and were a good platform to work on a few innovative ideas for public-private partnership development - which later led to the SMART-MED project idea on developing smart-city solutions via entrepreneurship and not procurement.

With my audience in Samos

Together with colleagues from the University of the Aegean, we talked and discussed on cases for smart cities, e-government solutions in local administration, joint programmes between municipalities and enterprises, funding opportunities and the sort.

Being in Samos every week, the visit to Rhodes was the new thing: a splendid as always old town, but also a vibrant community of hotel owners and touristic businesses laid the landscape for a two-day intensive course of training sessions and meetings.

The class in Rhodes

I promised I will certainly be revisiting the case of tourism-oriented entrepreneurship with local Union of Hotel owners - something that now materialised in the INNOVECO project idea for demand-based entrepreneurship and successfully presented at the Berkeley Global Venture Lab, in San Francisco, on January 2016.

In late September 2015, I had the chance to take part in an entrepreneurship workshop oriented towards young professionals form the domain of cultural management. The inHeritage 3-day event targeted the development of new business ideas to take advantage of industrial heritage sites and facilities (e.g. industrial museums, old factories, traditional industrial sites and so on).

1. The impressive Lavrion Industrial Park, reminding us the once vibrant "Compagnie Francaise des Mines du Laurium" a revolutionary lead-extracting factory established at around 1880 and operating for about 80 years. The whole investment, which was significant for Greece at that times, provided the landscape for the first large stock-scandal that shook the country, known as "lavreotika". A very good description of the "deal" and the forces that powered and lead it can be seen (in Greek) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNluMeJjTwI

2. The gathering of young professionals (mainly architects and engineers), aiming at developing new, innovative business ideas for the exploiting of our industrial heritage. In a world of cloud and mobile apps, working with real production sites of the past shows great interest for us - teaching and practicing entrepreneurship at the digital age.

With the team of young entrepreneurs and mentors in Lavrion inHeritage workshop

Tuesday, October 6, 2015

The9th Mediterranean
Conference on Information Systems was held in Samos on 3-5 October 2015,
organized by the Information Systems Laboratory (ISL) of the Department of
Information and Communication Systems Engineering, of the University of the
Aegean, under the auspices of Association of Information Systems (AIS).The main theme of MCIS 2015 was “Information
Systems in a changing economy and society”, reflecting the critical role
Information Systems play for enterprises and administrations, in their effort to
accommodate radical economic and societal changes.

MCIS 2015 was joined by academics and researchers,
from all over the world but also especially from the Mediterranean region, to reflect
on innovative research in information systems, from the point of view of a rapidly
changing world.